newyorkette

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The plumbers were supposed to come this morning, but they stood me up! So I was up very early, not quite well-slept enough, but with time to actually work in the beautiful light in my livingroom. I decided to add some tree details that had been missing from this painting, as well as a few more greens to the lawn.

It was one of those surreal, technicolor first days of spring, the day I took this snapshot of Otis looking up the hill.

(It’s not done yet!)

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I did this last year, too. I guess I always start the season off with what feels like the perfect outfit for a perfect first day of hot weather. Cool enough for outside, and warm enough for the subway or movies.

While I was at it, I found a job posting for J. Peterman calling for illustrators for their catalogue, and sent this drawing to them as part of my work samples. Because if there’s one thing I can do fast and easy, it’s drawing clothes. And it would be even more fun to be paid for it!

Cross your fingers!

(Books by carolita johnson.)

Harold Ross, of course. Check out Emily Gordon’s latest Ask the Librarians, where she interviews the honorable Erin and Jon, librarians extraordinaires at The New Yorker. Find out when the first board meeting cartoon appeared in the magazine. Also, read all about Garrison Keillor — no mention of where he took singing lessons, I notice — but everything else is there! Pseudonyms are also addressed.

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I finally found my long lost watercolors, and just in time, because lo and behold I suddenly got requests for color work. So, here are a few of the things I’ve been working on. First, my favorite, Otis. I saw him looking up the hill upstate, and was enchanted enough by his silhouette to snap a pic. Above is just a preliminary pencil and watercolor rough.

Next, Land’s End asked me for three rough conceptual drawings of an airplane pulling a giant t-shirt… Their logo would have been in the top quarter of the drawing, which is why I left room for it.

(Click on the image to see the other two versions.)

In the end, they didn’t use any of these images, because they regretted that they had actually had in mind something more along the lines of this, which I had to whip up practically on my cell phone, in the half hour before I had to run to work. I don’t think they really understood how the concept — they wanted the t-shirt to be big enough to fill the length of the page from t-shirt sleeve to t-shirt sleeve, with a tiny airplane, and some kind of landscape below — would actually translate onto the page. I assume they decided to try another idea. Fair enough, because I was paid for my roughs, which is why I can say with serenity: that’s the breaks!

Last but not least, my friends at The Bubble Lounge asked me for a quick color image for the Venice Beach Muscle Club’s appearance at their Industry Night, and here is what I came up with. There was some hesitation about the speedo, but apparently the band liked it, so the speedo stayed. I’m partial to men in speedo’s myself. (It levels the playing field for us women — why should men get to walk around with dignity while we women have nowhere to hide?)

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Oh! And I somehow made time to do a “portrait party” with a fellow artist. We met at The Met, and drew eachother’s portraits for the Portrait Party blog. Here is our post, with both our portraits: Carolita Johnson and Mauricio Salmon.
See my portrait of Mauricio here.